Learn to live gluten and wheat free

Month: November 2017

Hello and welcome to Your Gluten Free Life

A couple of months ago I published a blog entry on a product that claimed to be able to reduce or eliminate symptoms in people with celiac disease. Since then I’ve found a few more articles that have looked at these supplements in detail to see if they do what they claim.

Those of you with celiac disease know what a pain it can be (at times literally!). Consequently many celiacs look to supplements both to deal with the fact that celiac disease can lead to vitamin deficiencies, and to minimise the effects of eating gluten by mistake.

While there is promising research and development being conducted on using enzymes to break up gluten molecules, scientists have yet to develop a commercially available product for this purpose. Unlike with food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic products, the US FDA has little to no authority over the dietary supplement industry. This means makers of dietary supplements have a lot of freedom to make claims about the how effective their product is and have very little obligation to prove their claims.

The Celiac Disease Research Centre at Columbia University in the US set out to look at products that claim to aid in the digestion of gluten, and to look at whether there were any clinical studies to back up the claims. Their research identified 14 products, many with names like Gluten Cutter, GlutenEase, and Gluten Defense, implying relief for the celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Unfortunately, their research found very little evidence to support that the products actually met their claims. In fact, some may do more harm than good, especially considering one of the products had wheat as a main ingredient. The university researchers stated that “For people with celiac disease who are interested in (these gluten reducing products), the best way to go is to steer clear of these supplements and to consider participating in a clinical trial so that one day we will have a proven treatment.” They further recommend that people with celiac disease exercise caution and be somewhat skeptical of claims to magically cure gluten sensitivity. If you do want to try these supplements they strongly suggest you tell your doctor so they are aware of what you are taking in case it has some unintended consequences.

And, on that somewhat gloomy note, I’ll try to cheer you up with some delicious honey mustard prawns, and sweet biscuits.

Honey Mustard Prawns

I’m still trying honey in a range of different dishes just because I enjoy the taste. I knew of honey mustard chicken, but that’s normally a creamy dish, so I decided to adapt it to something not so creamy that would work with prawns. Add a few veggies and some rice and you end up with a very tasty, quick dish to have on a weeknight. Here’s the recipe – give it a go!

Iced Biscuits

I sent my partner to Aldi to buy me one of those nifty cookie press things so I could have a go at using them to make gluten free biscuits (cookies). But he came home with a container of cut out shapes instead. So I changed my tack slightly and had fun cutting out biscuits of all sorts of interesting shapes just for the fun of it. I’ve shared the recipe here for you to have a go at your own iced delights.

Until next time, take care and eat well.

Hi there!

My name is Suzanne Crouchley and I have celiac disease. Since being diagnosed I have had to learn to bake all over again.
I would now like to share with you what I have learned about baking gluten and wheat free.
Follow my blog to learn to bake with confidence - and without wheat!

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